I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

56

Tess

“Why is he trying to ruin my life?” I railed at Maeve the next morning.

“I thought your stepdad already ruined your life? That’s what you told me during every drunken Friday-night baking session,” my friend said.

I pulled up the gossip page website on my computer.

I had set an alert for Beck’s name because I was thirsty and desperate and breaking my own non-dating rules. But instead of fun puff pieces about what a sexy billionaire Beck was, my phone notifications last night had pointed to a mean gossip article.

Now there were more of them.

They all were assassinating Beck’s character. Several tabloids even had videos of Ashley giving an interview, talking about how Beck had fired her. Worse, they were saying terrible things about his relationship with his sisters and with me.

I was painted as an employee Beck had manipulated, and he was starting a cult with me.

He was going to break his father out of prison and rebuild the compound.

He was a psychopath.

He was manipulative.

“They’re completely dragging his character!” I was furious. “This is slander!”

What was more concerning were the videos of my stepfather being interviewed. He was talking about how much concern he had for the girls’ well-being, how they needed to be with their family and not with men related to their mother’s kidnapper, how he was going to pursue custody of the girls, and how he was asking the federal marshals to come retrieve them immediately.

“God, this is a shit show!”

Beck hadn’t even come to work. He had gone straight to Svensson Investment that morning to talk to the lawyers.

I was at the office. No one was working. All the employees were whispering about the gossip articles.

And about me.

They were blatantly staring across the open office to my desk.

I suddenly felt like I was back in middle school. That same panic gripped my chest, and I felt slightly claustrophobic.

“You need baked goods!” Maeve hauled me up.

“I need a drink,” I said hoarsely as my friend practically dragged me to the elevator.

“I’m shocked it took you this long to come downstairs,” Holly said when she saw us. “I have a slice of raspberry chocolate cheesecake ready to go.”

Maeve fed me a bite of the cake.

“Why is my family so awful?” I wailed. “It’s not fair! And they literally aren’t even my family! They’re just terrible people my mother brought into our lives. They ruined my life, and now they’re trying to ruin Beck’s life.”

“Surely his lawyers are on it,” Holly said, placing a cup of tea in front of me. “The Svenssons will sort this out.”

“I just feel partially responsible.” I picked at my cake. “Maybe Beck thinks I’m responsible too. I wasn’t a great fake girlfriend. If I had been more refined, maybe Ethel wouldn’t have been so against leaving the girls with me and Beck.”

“You need some whipped cream.” Holly scooped a dollop onto the cheesecake and added chocolate sprinkles and extra raspberry sauce.

“Of course you’re out here eating in the middle of a work day.”

My stepsister scowled at me from across the café.

Aaand that is exactly the last thing I need.

“If you’re not bringing me a craft cocktail,” I warned her, “I don’t want to hear it. I know you and Cressida put those stories in the tabloids because you’re trying to ruin what I have with Beck. Everyone knows you’re jealous, just like you were when we were kids. Whenever I had anything even remotely nice or something even remotely good happen to me, if I was ever able to scrounge even a little crumb of happiness, you were there to whine and complain and make sure that it was taken away from me.”

“I didn’t put those stories in the paper.” My stepsister scoffed. “Not like I would be stupid enough to admit that in a public place if I had. But I’m glad they’re out there. You don’t deserve Beck.”

I took a deep breath. “Actually,” I said, “yes, I do. He is a wonderful man, driven, yes, but also kind. He cares about his family. I can honestly say he is the best man I have ever met. Not that I’ve met great ones, but he’s still the best. And for your information, he doesn’t deserve someone like you.”

“You’re so entitled!” Shannyn sneered. “You make everything about you.”

I stared at her, stunned. “I’m the entitled one?” I shrieked, stabbing my fork at her. “Me? The one who had to give up her room, who had to give up all her stuff, who was never allowed to defend herself when you were being an absolute bitch to me? I’m the entitled one?”

“You always got all the attention!” my stepsister yelled.

“No, I literally did not.”

“Your mom always liked you best,” Shannyn hissed. “She was always saying how great of a daughter she had, how you were independent, and how you weren’t ever going to rely on a man.”

“Because I had no choice,” I said slowly. “Your dad spoiled you rotten, and my mom cared about her relationship more than her own daughter.”

“No, she didn’t! She always cared about you more.” Shannon scoffed.

I blinked. “We clearly had two different childhoods, because that is not at all what happened. She left you and your father all her life insurance money. She left you the house. She left you the car, she even left you my own personal bank account that had my name on it that was a joint account, and your father cleaned me out. I had nothing. My mom was blinded and manipulated by your father. She left me nothing except for a shitty painting of a New York street.” I was breathing hard.

“She gave you the painting in the gold frame with the girls in the yellow and red dresses?” Shannyn asked.

“What? Yes, the ugly one in the gold frame.” I was furious again. I thought I had gotten over the betrayal, but seeing my stepsister and having to deal with my stepfather had made the pain fresh again.

“That’s all she left me, and yeah, I had to fend for myself. So if I want to eat cake for breakfast and read books instead of coming down for family dinner or if I want to spend my Saturdays watching movies in bed, I will do that because I had to work for every little thing. Nothing was handed to me. I started with literally nothing. And if that makes me entitled, then so be it, but guess what? Those qualities are what Beck likes about me. And after all the shit I had to go through, I finally have something in my life that’s nicer than cake, and you and your father are not going to take it from me.”

Shannyn pursed her lips. “You’re still so hysterical.”

“It’s because you drive me crazy,” I snarled.

“And you’re just like your mother,” Shannyn continued. “You know what my dad said after she died? I asked him if he was sad, and he said no. He never loved her. He was just using her. She was sick, and he saw an opportunity for a score.” She laughed. “And she never figured it out. He would treat her like shit, but she was so desperate to finally find true love that she just let him walk all over her. And Beck is doing the same thing to you.”

“No, he’s not,” I said, hand clenched on my fork. I am so going to stab her. “He cares about me; he said so.”

“Wake up!” Shannyn said. “No decent man wants to be around you. You’re just like your mother. You attract terrible people.”

I was shaking after she left.

“I think we all need something stronger than cheesecake after that,” Holly said finally.

“A warm cinnamon bun?” Maeve suggested.

“Only if it’s soaked in bourbon,” Holly said grimly.

Shannyn had put me in a tailspin. Was she right? Was I as blind as my mom?

Of course not. Beck’s not like that.

I sent him a text, praying he responded, craving the reassurance.

But he didn’t answer.